10 Insider Secrets To Booking Cheap Flights

Jeff
Klee is CEO of CheapAir, a proprietary air fare
shopping engine designed to give trip planners the best
user experience on the planet.

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We like to refer to airfares as
being similar to the stock market –– they go up one
day and are down the next!).

But it’s important to remember
that there are basic things you can do to make searching for
cheap flights—and saving a lot of cash—easier.

Here are 10 simple tips for booking cheap
flights.

1. Check Fares Early & Often

Do you know that, on average, the fare difference between the
best day to buy your airline ticket and the worst is $236! And
that doesn’t even include people who purchase within 7 days (who
pay even more!). Airlines change fares constantly, often multiple
times a week. So when it comes to buying an airline ticket,
timing is everything. We recommend that you start checking fares
as soon as you know you’ll be flying. Then, check continuously,
at least once a week to get a sense of what’s a good deal. And
when you find a fare you like, be ready to pull the trigger since
the same fare may not be around for very long. We know it sounds
crazy but the airlines use very sophisticated computer systems to
adjust fares literally in real-time. Buying an airline ticket
really can be like playing the stock market! (Learn
about why airfares fluctuate.)

2. Buy at the Right Time

Knowing when to buy your
flightscan be the best tip
for saving some serious cash on your next trip. We did a study
last year and found that for domestic flights 49 days (about 7
weeks in advance) was, on average, the optimal time to buy plane
tickets. But that number can vary quite a bit depending on where
and when you’re going. The most important takeaway from our
study: you’ll likely pay a big premium for booking too late
(within 14 days), or for booking too early (more than 5 months in
advance). Somewhere between 3 weeks and 4 months in advance is
usually the sweet spot for flights within the U.S., although all
bets are off if you’re traveling for a holiday or other peak time
(see #4 below).

3. Some Days are Cheaper than Others

The day of the week you fly on can make a big difference in your
airfare. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are generally the least
expensive days for domestic flights and Friday and Sunday are the
most expensive. (Monday, Thursday, and Saturday are in the
middle). The difference between a Tuesday flight and a Sunday
flight is $29 each way on average, or $58 round trip. If you’re
traveling for the weekend, consider Saturday to Monday or Tuesday
instead of Thursday or Friday to Sunday. And if you’re traveling
for a full week, Tuesday to Tuesday or Wednesday to Wednesday is
often your best bet. More generally, if you’re willing to be
flexible, check a bunch of alternate dates around the same time
period because you never know when there might be one combination
of dates that has a fare a lot lower than the dates around it.

4. Be Mindful of Seasonality & Holidays

Knowing when to go can matter just as much as when to buy.
Because the most important factor that influences the price of a
particular flight is how full that flight is, it makes sense that
travel during Spring Break, Thanksgiving, or Christmas time would
be more expensive than normal. Similarly, some destinations,
especially international ones, are very seasonal in nature so
research the low and peak seasons for the places you’re
interested in visiting. If you’re going to Europe, for example,
you can find some amazing deals during the February and March low
season, but if you want to go during the summer, you’ll pay up to
double the price. If you do need to travel to popular places at
popular times, you usually want to book earlier than you
otherwise would since discount seats are likely to sell out
quickly.

5. Mix and Match Airlines to get the Cheapest
Flights

CheapAir.com features a “Mix & Match”
category that essentially lets you combine two one way fares that
may or may not be on the same airline, to form a round trip. “Mix
& Match” options come in handy when either (1) the best
possible fare for an itinerary requires travel on one airline
going out and another airline coming back; or (2) the airline
with the most convenient outbound flight doesn’t have a
convenient return flight or vice versa.

6. Sign Up for Airfare
Alerts and Track Routes

To help keep an eye on fare trends, sign up for CheapAir FareTracker alerts. You’ll get notified more
quickly when a sale starts and get a head start when only a
limited number of seats are available. Acting quickly when a fare
sale starts can save you a lot of money.

7. Prepare for Extra Bag Fees

Different airlines have different policies on baggage. Most
charge for checked bags and some even charge for carry-on. You
should factor that into your purchase decision. CheapAir makes
that easy: when you see a list of flight options on our site,
just hover over any of them with your mouse and you will see,
among other things, the amount that airline charges for bags.
With some airlines it’s also important that, once you buy your
ticket, you pay for your bags ahead of time by going to the
airline website because they may charge a premium if you wait
until you get to the airport. Read more about airline baggage feesand
what to know before you fly.

8. Check Alternate Airports

If there is more than one airport near your origin or destination
city, check them both. The more options you have in terms of
airports and travel dates, the more likely you will find what may
be one of the last discount seats to where you are going.
CheapAir automatically checks some nearby airports for you (San
Francisco and Oakland; Miami and Ft. Lauderdale; New York and
Newark; Washington, DC and Baltimore), but if you are willing to
use other alternates, you should check those, too, by doing
separate searches.

9. Break up Families or Groups into Separate
Purchases

This one sounds counter-intuitive – the more people that go, the
better the rate should be, right? That’s rarely true with the
airlines; “group discounts” are few and far between. Because
airlines will typically limit the number of seats per flight they
sell at their lowest rate, sometimes you can actually price
yourself right out of a good deal simply by having too many
passengers. If, for instance, Airline X has two seats remaining
on a flight at $100 and a bunch of other seats available for
$150, if you do a search for a group of 4, the price that will
come back will be $150. But if you search for two seats at a time
you can buy two for $100 and only have to pay the extra $50 for
the second two. How do you know when to do this? Always search
first for your whole group at once to make sure that the flight
has enough seats to accommodate everyone. Then try the same
search for a smaller group. If the price comes out lower for the
smaller group, buy the seats for the smaller group, and then do a
subsequent search for the rest of your party. It can be a lot of
work but, hey, if it saves money…

10. Buy on a Site that Offers Price Drop Payback

OK, this is a somewhat shameless plug, but we think it’s
justified. CheapAir’s uniquePrice Drop Paybackprogram is as simple as this: if the price for
the same itinerary goes down any time before your trip, we’ll pay
you back the difference in the form of a travel voucher for up to
$100 per ticket! We are proud to be the only U.S. travel site
that offers this buyer protection and we hope this program will
arm you with buying confidence.